Families who experienced hunger decreases in November, SWS reports

In its November 2020 survey, the Social Weather Stations (SWS) saw a decline in the number of families in the Philipines who experienced “involuntary hunger” at least once in the past three months.

The pollster found that 16 percent or an estimated four million families experience involuntary hunger, or hunger due to lack of food to eat, over the past three months. This, the SWS noted, is a 15-point drop from the record-high 30.7 percent or 7.6 million families in September 2020.

Despite the decrease, the latest hunger rate is still double the pre-pandemic 8.8 percent recorded in December 2019. The SWS also said that the average hunger rate for the full-year 2020 hit 21.1 percent, surpassing the 19.9 percent in 2011 and 2012, as well as 2019’s 9.3 percent.

Of the 16 percent of families who experienced hunger, 12.6 percent or 3.1 million families had “moderate hunger,” while 3.4 percent or 838,000 families experienced “severe hunger.” The SWS described moderate hunger as those who experienced hunger “only once” or “a few times,” while people who experienced severe hunger are those who were “often” or “always” hungry in the last three months.

The highest incidence of hunger was recorded in Metro Manila at 23.3 percent, followed by Mindanao at 16.0 percent, Balance Luzon at 14.4 percent, and Visayas at 14.3 percent. In September 2020, it was Visayas that recorded the highest incidence of hunger at 40.7 percent.

The same survey also showed that overall hunger increased among the self-rated poor to 21.7 percent from 12.8 percent in December 2019. It also rose among the non-poor to 10.6 percent from 4.1 percent last December. Overall hunger also went up among the self-rated food poor and non-food poor to 28.1 percent and 10.5 percent, respectively.

Conducted from November 21 to 25, this latest SWS survey was done using face-to-face interviews of 1,500 adults nationwide. It has sampling error margins of plus-minus 2.5 percent for national percentages, plus-minus four percent for Balance Luzon, and plus-minus six percent for Metro Manila, Visayas, and Mindanao.

Prior to this, the pollster has released a survey which reported that 48 percent of Filipino families rated themselves as “poor,” 36 percent said they feel “borderline poor,” and only 16 percent considered themselves as not poor. Malacañang said they were saddened that many Filipinos considered themselves as poor, however, they are hopeful that Filipinos will be able to go back to their feet once Covid-19 vaccines are available in the country.

“Ginagawa natin ang lahat para maibigay ang mga bakuna sa mga Pilipino, kahit ano pang halagang iyan at dahil alam natin na ito lang po ang tunay na solusyon sa pandemyang ito. At matapos po ang pandemya, lahat po tayo makakabalik na po tayo sa ating mga hanapbuhay at bababa po iyong kahirapan (We are doing everything to give vaccines to Filipinos no matter how much it will cost because we know that it is the only solution for this pandemic to end. Once the pandemic ends, everyone can return to their livelihoods and poverty will go down),” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque earlier said.